1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a program for statistically evaluating significance of data obtained from specimens. In particular, the invention relates to a significance evaluation program suitable to a case where there are a plurality of evaluation items and a recording medium in which the significance evaluation program is stored and which can be read out by a computer.
2. Description of Related Art
It is difficult to investigate for all in a population whether a certain treatment offered relates to obtained data in terms of a certain evaluation item, or whether a certain condition satisfied relates to obtained data in terms of a certain evaluation item in a case where the effect of dug administration is needed to be checked or the like. Therefore, as the drug administration is exemplified, a specimen to which a drug is administered and a specimen to which a placebo is administered are extracted from each population. Then, it is checked whether there is any difference between data obtained from both specimens in terms of the evaluation item. If there is a difference between the data, a comparison test for significantly examining whether the difference is significant is performed. That is to say, the comparison test is performed for significantly examining whether the difference between the specimens can be based on difference between the populations.
In order to significantly examine whether the difference is significant, a hypothesis (null hypothesis) that administration of the drug is not related to obtained data in terms of the evaluation item in the population is made. Then, a statistical probability, that is, a significance probability that a specimen providing the practically obtained data in terms of the evaluation item is extracted from the population in accordance with the hypothesis is calculated. Note that the significance probability is referred to as “p value” in some cases below. Then, the calculated p value is compared with a predefined significance level. If the significance probability is smaller than the significance level, the null hypothesis is rejected. This results in that the difference between the data observed in terms of the evaluation item as for the administration of the drug is determined to be significant at the defined level. As the significance level, although 0.05 (5%) or 0.01 (1%) is generally used in many cases, 0.03 or 0.1 is used in some cases depending on disciplinary fields, subjects to be investigated, or the like
The result of the significance evaluation performed in such a manner is conventionally indicated with the following ways in general. That is, the result of the significance evaluation is indicated with a table in which p values are listed for evaluation items, or with a graph in which data obtained for the specimens is indicated with a bar graph or a line graph and p values are written into the graph (for example, see Toshikatsu TOMINAGA and two others, “EPIDEMIOLOGIC STUDY FOR OCCUPATIONAL LOW BACK PAIN AND QUALITY OF LIFE IN LABORERS”, published by Japanese society of occupational medicine and traumatology, 2003, vol. 51, No. 6, pp. 423-427 and Tsumura Lifescience Co., Ltd. “EFFECT OF TAKING BATH BEFORE BEDTIME ON NOCTURNAL SLEEP IN WOMEN WITH COLD CONSTITUTIONS”, released by Tsumura Lifescience Co., Ltd., Online, Jul. 3, 2008, News Release, 2008, searched on Internet on Aug. 26, 2009, <URL: http://www.tsumura-ls.co.jp/news/2008/0703_rel.htm>.
In Toshikatsu TOMINAGA and two others, “EPIDEMIOLOGIC STUDY FOR OCCUPATIONAL LOW BACK PAIN AND QUALITY OF LIFE IN LABORERS”, published by Japanese society of occupational medicine and traumatology, 2003, vol. 51, No. 6, pp. 423-427, an association between occupation or lifestyle and low back pain is examined. In a table quoted in FIG. 7, people who work in a pharmaceutical company and care workers are set to be subjects to be compared. Then, a comparison test is performed on the subjects in terms of evaluation items such as presence/absence of low back pain and working positions during work and the p value is listed for each evaluation item.
In Tsumura Lifescience Co., Ltd. “EFFECT OF TAKING BATH BEFORE BEDTIME ON NOCTURNAL SLEEP IN WOMEN WITH COLD CONSTITUTIONS”, released by Tsumura Lifescience Co., Ltd., Online, Jul. 3, 2008, News Release, 2008, searched on Internet on Aug. 26, 2009, <URL: http://www.tsumura-ls.co.jp/news/2008/0703_rel.htm>, examination of effect on sleep inducement is performed on women with subjective cold constitutions under a condition of not taking a bath (N), taking a shower bath (S) or sitting in a bathtub with bath additive (B). In graphs quoted in FIGS. 8A to 8C, subjective evaluations for a) motivation on awakening, b) drowsiness on awakening and c) feeling of wakefulness on awakening are quantified with Visual Analog Scale (VAS) or the like so as to be indicated with bar graphs. In FIGS. 8A to 8C, asterisks (*) which indicate that p value<0.05 is satisfied are written in the graph for the group where the significance difference is observed. In such a manner, the degree of significance is evaluated in stages. For example, a rule that if p value<0.05 is satisfied, “**” is written into a bar graph or a line graph, and if p value<0.01 is satisfied, “*” is written thereinto is generally adopted.
However, the presence/absence of significance difference or the degree of significance cannot be grasped at a glance from the conventional indications as described above. In particular, if there are a large number of evaluation items, the presence/absence of significance difference or the degree of significance cannot easily understood sensuously and it is extremely difficult to interpret the indicated information. For example, in the indication as in Toshikatsu TOMINAGA and two others, “EPIDEMIOLOGIC STUDY FOR OCCUPATIONAL LOW BACK PAIN AND QUALITY OF LIFE IN LABORERS”, published by Japanese society of occupational medicine and traumatology, 2003, vol. 51, No. 6, pp. 423-427, p values are listed for the number of evaluation items so that the listed numerals are not easily understood. Moreover, it is troublesome to compare the p values of the evaluation items with each other when rows of the evaluation items are separated in the indication of Toshikatsu TOMINAGA and two others, “EPIDEMIOLOGIC STUDY FOR OCCUPATIONAL LOW BACK PAIN AND QUALITY OF LIFE IN LABORERS”, published by Japanese society of occupational medicine and traumatology, 2003, vol. 51, No. 6, pp. 423-427. On the other hand, in the indication as in Tsumura Lifescience Co., Ltd. “EFFECT OF TAKING BATH BEFORE BEDTIME ON NOCTURNAL SLEEP IN WOMEN WITH COLD CONSTITUTIONS”, released by Tsumura Lifescience Co., Ltd., Online, Jul. 3, 2008, News Release, 2008, searched on Internet on Aug. 26, 2009, <URL: http://www.tsumura-ls.co.jp/news/2008/0703_rel.htm>, as many graphs as the evaluation items are required. Therefore, a large amount of time and effort are required to make such graphs. In addition, this imposes a tremendous burden on a reader to examine graphs individually and further study the graphs in a comprehensive manner.
Under these circumstances, there has been a demand of indicating evaluation results of statistical significances so as to be easily grasped at a glance even when there are a large number of evaluation items. Further, a program which is executed so as to calculate p values, evaluate the significances and indicate the evaluation results by controlling hardware has been desired because the statistical processings require a large amount of time and effort if manually operated.